Tournament director Amelie Mauresmo, herself a former women’s world number one, had regularly pointed to the possibility of short two-set matches as the reason for often overlooking the women.
“The match-ups are always interesting for both men and women, but there are multiple factors for us to make the choice,” Mauresmo said earlier on Monday.
“As you know, the potential length of the matches is something that we are also looking at.”
On picking Sabalenka against Osaka, she added: “It was obvious that it should be a night match tonight.”
There was a school of thought that Mauresmo might have looked elsewhere, though, had men’s world number one Jannik Sinner still been in the tournament.
Sinner would have been scheduled to play on the same day, but without him the men’s matches taking place on Monday lacked star power.
If Sabalenka against Osaka did not take place under the lights, then which women’s match would conceivably ever be picked?
With that came a sense of expectation.
If the match ended up being a dud, then it could have been used by critics as a stick to beat the women’s game with.
That, others argue, was a situation created by the French Open’s reluctance to showcase its female stars in the first place.
Was the burden which it placed on Sabalenka and Osaka to represent the women’s game fair?
“I don’t really care. There are so many different things to put pressure on myself – that was the last thing on my mind,” said Osaka.
“Shout out to the tournament for trusting us – I hope it was entertaining for people.”
